


Just a riddle in the sky

by meeks00



Category: Generation Kill, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:40:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meeks00/pseuds/meeks00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A <i>Generation Kill</i> fic set in the <i>Supernatural</i> universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a riddle in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> For my Brad and Ray girls — [](http://queeniegalore.livejournal.com/profile)[**queeniegalore**](http://queeniegalore.livejournal.com/) and [](http://timeofnoreply.livejournal.com/profile)[**timeofnoreply**](http://timeofnoreply.livejournal.com/) — happy belated birthday! Special thanks to my wonderful, talented betas, [](http://justaotherwitch.livejournal.com/profile)[**justaotherwitch**](http://justaotherwitch.livejournal.com/) and [](http://kitsunejin.livejournal.com/profile)[**kitsunejin**](http://kitsunejin.livejournal.com/), and also thanks to [](http://l-s-d-me.livejournal.com/profile)[**l_s_d_me**](http://l-s-d-me.livejournal.com/) for poking and prodding me when I needed it most. All mistakes are my own. Title and lyrics below are from “Where Do My Bluebirds Fly?” by the Tallest Man on Earth. I apologize in advance for my horrendous Latin.

  
  
_"Oh, well I know you stroke your feathers, baby, upon the ghosts along my trail,  
and I know the lie was sold and buried before I knew it was for sale, oh.  
With all this fever in my mind, I could aim for your kerosene eyes.  
Oh, you're just a target in the sky.  
I say where do my bluebirds fly?"_

//

Ray talks.

— _Fārī,_ to speak. _For,_ I speak. —

He talks because it drowns everything else out. Even sitting alone in a house that isn’t technically empty, he talks as much as he can and as quickly as he can so the silence doesn’t creep in.

— _Audīre,_ to hear. _Audiō,_ I hear. —

The hollow thump of his head against the oven’s metal exterior creates a rhythmic beat that turns his stomach, makes his head throb. His throat is dry because of the stinging lump of holding back tears and from speaking himself hoarse. He forces himself to stay awake, widening his eyes and shutting them tight again, again. And his stomach aches, but that is less because of hunger than from the three-inch gashes stretching across his belly.

A dark stain spreads over his shirt in a shade of red that looks almost black. It is like a Rorschach inkblot. In it, he sees silhouettes and nightmares transform into tangible, touchable things. Things that can be seen and heard, that can kill and be killed.

— _Petere,_ to seek. _Petis,_ you seek. —

It’s the stench though, that finally gets to him.

It’s the smell of rotting meat and infection — so strong that he thinks it’s crawling through the fibers of his clothes and through the weave of his too-long hair. Then all that’s left is the tangy, acrid drip of stomach acid sliding over his tongue as he dry heaves.

— _Petere,_ to seek, to attack. _Petis,_ you seek, you attack. _Petō,_ I attack. —

He runs the back of his hand across his mouth, his sleeve over his chin, and catches sight of rusty red and shining silver as his arm moves. The sick yellow color of headlights sends dark shadows running across the walls as a car drives by.

The letter opener drops with a clatter onto blood-splattered linoleum tiles. He’d forgotten he was still holding it.

— _Secare,_ to cut. _Secās,_ you cut. _Secō,_ I cut. —

He looks away to an unsullied spot on floor just next to the body covered in fur and stab wounds. Yet through his peripheral vision, he can see the dark brown fur recede and turn back into naked, pink skin. Human skin.

The silence creeps in again.

— _Caedere._ To kill. _Caedis,_ you kill. _Caedō,_ I —

Someone slams the front door open. A tall man suddenly stands before him.

Red and blue lights flicker past the kitchen window.

— _Caedō._ I kill. —

+++

The man says he’s with the FBI. He lowers his weapon, his finger still straight on the trigger, and reaches into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. When Ray picks up his weapon again, the agent flashes a badge that doesn’t rival the silver gleam of the letter opener.

In the wash of light seeping into the house from outside, Ray sees that the man is tall, taller than the one-story home can comfortably allow. His height is made even more apparent by his military-like, ramrod-straight poise.

“Were you bitten?” the agent asks, his question sounding more like an order. He ignores the letter opener and pockets his badge, replacing it with a flashlight, which he shines into Ray’s face, then over the rest of his body. “Were you _bitten?_ ”

Ray shakes his head slowly, and the agent turns off the flashlight, letting out a breath between his teeth.

For some reason, Ray doesn’t resist when the man forces him to drop the letter opener, takes him by the elbow, and leads him outside into the flashing lights and the crowd.

They make one stop at the EMT to bandage up the line of gashes on his abdomen. The wounds are deep enough for a line of adhesive strips across each, but not enough for stitches, and Ray realizes that the majority of the blood on his shirt does not belong to him.

He only realizes the agent has taken him a few yards away when everything fades into a muted roar in the distance. It’s a rush of white noise from everyone wanting answers and calling his home the scene of a crime. He finds he doesn’t have anything to say; he was there himself, and even he doesn’t know what the fuck happened.

So he stands before the agent, but he doesn’t trust the badge and the lack of a familiar accent, the gun nestled against the man’s hip instead of set in a holster — just as he didn’t trust the noises in his mother’s bedroom.

He’d barged in expecting to kick his momma’s boyfriend Porter out on his ass, but what he found instead were bloody sheets and an animal scratching at the window. As he looked for his wounded mother, it wasn't until he stumbled over something soft that he noticed the body by the door. Turns out it was Porter who’d been wounded. Who was dead already.

— _Petō,_ I seek. _Aperiō,_ I find. —

It’s only when the heavy weight of the hand on his elbow drops away and lands on his shoulder that he realizes he spaced out. Muffled words take shape, as if forming in the air, and Ray swallows as he meets the agent’s eyes.

“Everything will be OK,” the man says.

Ray jerks away, startled by such utter bullshit. “You outta be riding the short bus if you think everything's gonna be OK,” he replies, voice climbing and climbing until it’s just about a shout. “Everything is abso-fucking-lutely not OK.”

He tugs at his bloody shirt, scissors two fingers in one of the gashes so that the gauze beneath, speckled with dots of red, is visible.

“I’m covered in blood. My house is a crime scene like somethin’ out of the fuckin’ _X-files_. My momma — she’s — she was — and then I — ”

Ray knows he’s beginning to hyperventilate, and the words suddenly just tumble into his head again and from his mouth like spilled ink, dark and thick and horribly permanent.

— _Petis, petō;_ you attack, I attack. _Secās, secō;_ you cut, I cut. —

These thoughts pour from his mouth like word vomit, just like before when he sat in the kitchen.

“ _Caedere,_ ” Ray mutters, bending over to rest his hands on his bare knees, his breaths coming in gasps and creating thick puffs of white in the night. “ _Caedō, caedis, caedit, caedimus._ To kill. I kill. You kill. It/he/she kills. We — ”

He cuts himself off when that large hand settles on his shoulder again and shakes him, hard. “Hey. _Hey._ ”

Ray straightens and instinctively lashes out, the words scattering from his mind.

He’s used to this, familiar with this sensation among the new and foreign ones that have overwhelmed him in the past few hours — to fight, _pugnāre._

He shoots his fist out for a gut punch. Is blocked with the firm sideswipe of a forearm. Retaliates with a knee-up and is blocked by a curled leg. Swings blindly with a left hook and is blocked again.

And then he’s cut from the ground. He falls onto his side and bangs his hip. It’s only then that he realizes he’s still in his sleeping clothes, his tattered, bloody shirt and his boxers. A spike of pain runs down to his thigh as he’s rolled over, his legs brushing against dirt and gravel, and then his arm is crooked back until it feels like his shoulder might pop out of its socket.

“Listen for a minute,” the agent orders, not even sounding out of breath, the fucker.

“Why should I?” Ray asks. His breath makes a bigger cloud before his face, a mix of orange-brown from the dirt and white from the chill. He twists even though a zing of pain shoots down to his fingertips from his shoulder. “You’re not FBI. You think that badge could fool one of Mrs. McKinney’s retarded chickens?”

There’s a surprised huff of a laugh over him, but the pressure on his wrist doesn’t abate. Instead, he feels a knee press into the small of his back as if the fake agent recognizes that Ray’s not about to put up with anymore bullshit.

“I’ll shout for help,” Ray chokes out.

There isn’t another laugh, but Ray can hear the amusement thrumming beneath the man’s words. “You’ll sound like a little bitch.”

Ray might’ve laughed then himself, but his breath is squeezed from his lungs. He wheezes instead and tilts his head to glance at the man. It’s quiet as he takes in a face half-lit in the wash of headlights from the crowd lingering around his house — angular panes across his face and a firm jaw line, a white scar cutting across an eyebrow, sharp blue eyes.

“Who are you really?” Ray finds himself asking.

After a long moment, just as he gives up on waiting for an answer, the man says, “Call me Colbert.”

Ray almost laughs, but he stops himself, because if he starts, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop, the way he’s feeling now. “You can call me Bond,” he replies, voice strangled from the pressure of Colbert’s knee on his back.

He sees the agent roll his eyes, but the pressure on his back lessens. “I know that’s not your name. I read your file. Josh Ray Person. How positively quaint.”

“Fuck you, you oversized freak of nature. It’s Ray. And I just meant you’re like some sort of 007 mega-douche.”

There’s a pause. “Noted.” Ray catches a slice of a grin from the corner of his eye. “I’m Brad. Brad Colbert.”

“Brad,” Ray repeats, testing it out.

“But you call me Colbert,” Brad replies, pointing a finger at him and pressing down with his knee again.

Ray forces a pained grin. “Sure thing, Brad.”

Brad shakes his head. “Look,” he says over a sigh. “I’m going to let you up, and you’re going to listen to me this time, you copy?”

His cheek brushing roughly against the gravel, Ray nods because he doesn’t have any other choice. But he reckons he can have another go at this gigantic ass-face, if anything.

He pushes slowly to a stand, feels the ache in his hip from the fall like he’s some sort of limpdick retiree, the pulse of pain at the small of his back where he knows a bruise will form.

Then Brad says, “It’s not your fault.”

The muscles Ray had forced himself to coil begin to unravel so quickly that, afterward, he just feels drained and spent. He raises his eyes to meet Brad’s and realizes the man’s not as old as he had initially thought — not much older than Ray himself, maybe only in his mid-twenties, even. It’s just that he’s tall, imposing, all hard lines and no give.

“You saw something tonight you weren’t meant to, and I’m — I’m sorry for that. I got here too late.” Brad doesn’t sound like he’s used to apologizing, like it hurts him to say anything at all. “But you did good.”

“By killing — ” Ray starts, but then, fuck. Suddenly he feels the sting of tears behind his eyes again, the tickling, burning lump of being overwhelmed rising in his throat. He swallows hard, clenches his fists. Swallows again to force down the words, to get rid of them.

Brad frowns, and Ray thinks the man’s either suffering from a serious case of constipation or that might actually be what passes for his sympathetic expression. “Look, kid — ”

A rush of frustration spikes through Ray’s gut. “Seriously, homes,” he interrupts. “I’m not a fuckin’ kid.” He swipes a sleeve that’s still crusty with blood across his face, feels the smear of tears, the scratch of dried blood against the sensitive skin below his eyes. “I’m almost eighteen, you fake FBI dicksuck.”

Brad presses his lips together as if irritated at being interrupted. “Congratulations on almost being allowed to purchase chewing tobacco, you inbred, sister-fucking hillbilly.”

Ray shuts his mouth, failing to suppress the warmth of amusement that starts to cling to his insides. He watches the man glance away as if pulling himself together.

“Look,” Brad says, brushing off the knees of his suit trousers, “a lot of other people would’ve been dead in your shoes. Your mom couldn’t help what she turned into, and — and you saved her from that. You fought back and got the job done. That’s the kind of person you are.” He pauses. “There are worse things.”

It is quiet for a while. The moment is full even without sound in a way that Ray wouldn’t have thought possible since just a few hours ago.

When he speaks again, his voice is barely audible, dry and cracked like how he feels. It’s as if the breath has been punched from his body, just the ache left in the aftermath. “I don’t want to be like that if it means I’m the only one left,” he says.

Brad doesn’t glance away, just looks at him, through him, through layers of misery and fear and hope as if there’s more to Ray than just an almost-eighteen-year-old kid who’d had to do the unthinkable.

“You already are. Make do, kid,” Brad says, and then he pauses. “Ray.” He reaches out, as if to maybe pat Ray on the shoulder or on the head or something awkward like that, but then all he does is turn away and head back toward the flashing lights and the crowd.

Ray watches him leave.

— _Íre,_ to go. _Ís,_ you go. —

+++

That night, he stays over on Mrs. McKinney’s couch and is overwhelmed by the smell of moth balls and Big Red gum. Some of her chickens are making a racket out back, like they’re starting their own cockfighting ring or eating each other or something, and even stuffing one of the knitted couch cushions over his head doesn’t smother the racket.

He doesn’t sleep much, but he can’t imagine sleeping in his own house anyway, let alone taking a step in there again. He hadn't been forced to, since Brad had led him out of the kitchen. Sheriff Powell had gotten a bag and stuffed it full so Ray didn’t have to go past the yellow tape for his things.

He appreciates the gesture, until the thought of repercussions hits him like a blow to the head. He wonders if he’ll be arrested, if they’ll stick him in juvie or try him as an adult and stick him in county. He wonders if he’ll have to make a shank out of a toothbrush to survive to eighteen. His gut rolls at the thought of being charged with murder, but thinking of being put away for what he’s done loosens something in his shoulders.

Most of the rest of the night is spent trying to think of anything other than his momma and the soft give of Porter’s body by the door.

But it’s hard to think about anything else.

Eventually though, Ray is able to see past the image of a half-familiar face in the dark.

And he ends up thinking about Brad — Brad Colbert — who is most definitely not an FBI agent.

Brad had shown up shortly after it all happened. The time between everything going silent in the house to the cops showing up couldn’t have been that long, though it had felt like a span of hours, but he'd still been first at the scene, there even before Sheriff Powell had gotten out of his car.

Ray remembers only then that the sheriff had stepped out of his vehicle as Brad steered him out of the house, and he'd watched blankly as Brad flashed his badge again and held up a finger for Sheriff Powell to give them a minute.

And then they had their talk. Or fight. Or whatever it was.

Brad said he’d been too late, which meant that he’d been in the area or knew to be there around that time. He said Ray had done good in fighting back, which meant he must’ve known what the fuck had happened to Ray’s momma.

Knew to come inside. Knew what would be there.

Ray wipes his eyes. And then he comes up with a plan.

— _Íre,_ to go. _Ís,_ you go. _Ímus_. We go. —

+++

Sheriff Powell is lean and tall and known for his cowboy boots and his hardass attitude. He knocks on Mrs. McKinney’s front door the next morning with an easy smile and in his official uniform. Then he chats her up about her delicious lemonade and her new, checkered curtains before leading Ray onto the porch for a short chat.

Once they’re sitting on either side of the small outdoor coffee table, the sheriff’s smile drops from his face. Ray thinks the shit’s already hit the fuckin’ fan, and so he sits tight and waits for it all to land.

“It’s a rough thing, what you been put through last night, son,” Sheriff Powell says.

Ray’s mind first, as always, goes to his momma on the kitchen floor, to Porter on the bedroom floor, then to the letter opener covered in his momma’s blood and his own fingerprints. “Yes, sir,” he replies unsteadily. The flash of blue and red lights through the kitchen window swims in front of his eyes until he blinks them away.

Sheriff Powell draws off his hat, the crown of his shaved head looking strangely shiny in the sunlight. He looks down to the silver metal tips of his boots for a moment before speaking again. “We’re gonna dedicate all our time and resources to figure out what done in your momma and Marcus Porter like that. We even got the FBI helpin’ to track down this killer.”

Ray blinks at him. “Killer?”

The sheriff rubs a hand over his scalp. “That’s right, and I’m sorry to say it. The FBI’s been trackin’ ‘im since Indianapolis and St. Louis, and Agent Graham reckons he’s real close — hidin’ out in the town most like, or nearby. Figure it's probably the same killer as got that bartender over at the Road House Saloon downtown. But don’t you worry. I’m gonna make sure I got my men out at night and will do until this sumbitch is in bracelets.”

Ray thinks of the article in the paper about one of the saloon's bartenders, Carl Hollis, and feels his throat tighten up when he remembers the bit about how the man's heart had been missing. Ray hadn't gotten a good look at Porter when he'd stumbled over the body, overwhelmed by the site of his momma's bloody sheets and the shape of Porter's body on the floor and then the creature by the window, which turned eyes that glowed silver at him, even in the dark.

Mrs. McKinney hadn't said a word about the details, and Ray hadn't even wanted to think about it this morning over breakfast.

He swallows thickly and nods when he sees that Sheriff Powell is looking at him for some sort of acknowledgement. And then he frowns, a question seeping into his mind over the bloody images flashing through it.

“Hold up. What’s his name? Agent Graham?” he asks.

“That’s right. Russell Graham. Spoke with you yesterday, after the fact.”

There was a sick-looking bruise on Ray’s back this morning, and his hip still hurt like a motherfucker. “Right, yeah. I remember,” he replies, frowning. He thinks of the badge that didn't sit right, the seriously un-fucking-professional behavior, and the way the man carried himself, as if he was more used to wielding weapons than hefty paperwork.

“Well, he’s the agent in charge, so he said he ought to be the one to speak with you first. He said you did a good job in defending yourself, that the man he’s been trackin’ never leaves any survivors. You did a brave thing, Ray.”

Ray can’t find it in him to do anything but swallow again and nod.

Sheriff Powell eyes him carefully before leaning over the table to pat Ray on the shoulder. “You know I was good friends with your momma — was over a few times for when you were caught doin’ what you shouldn’t — you haven’t been at the moonshine again since, have you? Or shootin’ off ex-presso pot rockets at your own face?”

“Uh,” Ray stutters, surprised out of his thoughts. “No, sir. That was only fun the once. Been sticking to straight up coffee crystals, recently.”

“Right,” the sheriff says with a half-grin. “Well, I just wanted to stop by and tell you that I’m — the whole town — we’re awful sorry for what’s happened. And I’m gonna do all I can to make it right.” He squeezes his hat, and then after another moment, he puts it back on and slowly pushes up to a stand.

Ray stands as well and then watches, still a bit confused, as the sheriff turns and walks off after hollering into the house to say goodbye to Mrs. McKinney.

He’d been expecting to get his wrists locked in handcuffs, not a pat on the shoulder.

+++

Brad Colbert drives a huge-ass SUV, black of course. Ray might’ve thought he was a legit fed if the combination of the suit, the car, and the general attitude of “I could give a shit but for my pension” were anything to go by.

But he knows better.

Besides, if Brad _did_ actually work for the government, dealing in Area 51-type shit, he'd probably have a better, more convincing FBI badge.

So Ray hitched a ride into town after his little chat with the sheriff. Then he headed straight toward the one car that stood out in the motel parking lot.

Now, he picks the lock like Porter taught him and feels a sharp sting of satisfaction when the door pops open. Ray didn’t care for him, but his momma seemed to think Porter could fall into a barrel of shit and come out smelling like roses.

Ray doesn’t know how long he’s there, creeping around and poking at shit. It’s clean as if it’s a rental, the carpets vacuumed and the dash glossy without dust, but there's a high-tech GPS system installed above the radio, and that's definitely a gun holster beneath the driver's seat with a sawed off strapped in nice and snug and within easy reach. But for all of that, the man still has a fucking cassette player with a box full of tapes from the '80s by the foot of the passenger seat. Next to the box is what looks like a radar detector, or another radio.

Even stranger, however, is the wide circle drawn in what looks like chalk on the inside of the roof of the car. There are symbols and a pentacle within, and it creeps him the fuck out.

He reluctantly gets over it and climbs into the back seat, but it's a near thing. That’s some straight up serial killer shit right there.

Stacked on the back seats are ancient books on mythical creatures. They're all so old and worn that they make the entire car smell comforting, like the back of the county library, or like one of the mom and pop shops downtown.

Then he notices there’s a worn leather journal stuffed between two of the stacks. It's filled with barely legible notes scribbled on unlined pages, and it’s three-quarters full of scribbles, some of it, strangely enough, in Latin. There are also drawings of terrifying creatures, news clippings, pictures taped onto pages. He stares at the last marked page and tries to decipher the writing:

> INDIANAPOLIS, IN:
> 
> \- 4 victims reported: September, dates fall on waxing moon (2) on E. McCartney St. and S. Meridian St.; full moon (2) S. Missouri St.  
> \- hearts missing
  
> ST. LOUIS, MO:
> 
> \- 1 victim, 1 survivor (ran off): September, date falls on waning moon (1) at Christy's Fuel truck stop  
> \- heart missing  
> \- alpha wolf killed  
> \- survivor → possible 1st generation wolf
  
> NEVADA, MO:
> 
> \- 1 victim: October, waxing moon, Road House Saloon  
> \- heart missing  
> \- no similar killings in St. Louis → 1st gen wolf confirmed; traveled  
> \- 1 victim; 1 wolf (2nd gen wolf) killed by 1 survivor: full moon, farmhouse near S. Tower St.  
> \- wolf based in town?
  
> 

Ray's hands shake as he flips back a few pages. There is a newspaper clipping about the man at the gas station who'd been killed in St. Louis, one about Carl Hollis from the _Nevada Daily Mail,_ and there are enough crime scene photos on previous pages, some of them with familiar faces, that Ray shuts the journal before he’s sick all over it. He stuffs it back between the books.

Then he sits there for a moment, thinking about the list, about what it means. _Lunar cycles. Hearts missing. Wolves._ It's some fuckin' retarded bullshit that he doesn't even know how to deal with right now.

When he'd decided to stalk the fake FBI agent, he'd figured it was a government conspiracy or some other cock-up. He'd thought the worst it could be was some sort of disease, not motherfucking imaginary creatures coming to life.

And for some reason, Brad Colbert follows these creatures and kills them like some sort of new-age, Viking-sized Van Helsing, except without Dracula and hot vampire chicks, just people's mommas turning into monsters. Fuck, Ray really hopes there aren't any vampires too, though that might be cool as shit.

He thinks about first and second generation wolves and feels his stomach turn at the thought of becoming one of those things. His mom must've been infected, and Ray's hand immediately goes to the bandage over his stomach.

But then he remembers how Brad had asked if he’d been bitten. He figures that's the only way to be infected and feels the spike of anxiety in his gut begin to recede.

Turning back to the stack of books, he makes a split-second decision and stuffs the journal into the waistband of his jeans to take with him.

It’s only by chance that he happens to look up just as Colbert himself steps out of the motel room up front, dressed impeccably in dark denim jeans and a black leather jacket over a plain white tee. Following behind is possibly the best-looking Sally in fuckin’ Nevada, Missouri. She's all perky tits and a straight-toothed smile, whipping back her light brown hair like she's getting ready to pose for a _Hustler_ centerfold right there in the parking lot.

Ray turns away and quickly jumps over the seat into the trunk, landing on bags of rock salt of all things. He knocks over a few gallon-sized jugs of water with rosaries floating within them and quickly rights the jugs before peeking over the back seat.

Brad doesn’t look up when he hands the Sally a folded up stack of bills, but Ray catches the way she looks after him from beneath long eyelashes like her John is the Second Coming, gift-wrapped and bow-tied in worn leather just for her.

Though he doesn’t look back, Brad says something as he walks away, sharp enough that the Sally jerks to a stop and stands there clutching the bills to her — _stunningly ample,_ Ray has to admit — chest. Then she walks away without a backward glance, her heels clicking sharply on the pavement as she goes.

 _Goddamn_ , Ray thinks with reluctant admiration. _Dude’s a fuckin’ Iceman._

He hears Brad turn the lock and then hop into the driver's seat, so he ducks down and tries to breathe silently. That's when he sees a short string on a floor.

There’s no sound as he tugs on it, lifting the floor panel. He looks inside.

Through the SUV’s darkly-tinted windows, sunlight reflects off the heap of metal in bright flashes.

Guns, knives, rope, a wooden stake and a flame torch — _what the fuck_ — ammo, and — _yeah, super double fuck_ — that’s definitely a machete.

He shuts the floor panel quickly, his heart hammering in his chest so loudly he thinks his ears are vibrating as a result.

 _Shit shit shit shit_ shit, he mouths. _What the fucking fuck?_

Brad turns the engine over and drives them away, and Ray sticks as low as possible to the carpeted floor of the trunk, over the hidden weapons cache full of Hannibal Lector’s favorite tools.

+++

After listening to Air Supply’s greatest hits blaring from the speaker right by his ear for a few miles, and after not being shot through the backseat or anything, Ray can't help but get over some of his fear.

And then some time along the way, possibly right in the middle of “All Out of Love,” Ray must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing he knows, he’s being hauled out from the trunk by the too-loose collar of his t-shirt.

“What the hell are you doing here?” This time, Brad's voice is less awkward in an attempt to be consoling and more along the lines of ‘I’m going to fuck your shit up,’ and it fits as if this is his natural tone of voice.

Ray tries to blink the sleep from his eyes and pull away, but Brad has a firm grip on him. Ray is definitely not terrified or about to piss himself. “Uh. I got lost on my way home?”

Brad shakes him slightly by the collar of his tee. “Don’t fuck with me, kid.”

Ray maybe feels his balls shrink up and taps at the hand grasping his shirt collar. “OK. OK,” he manages to say. “And quit callin’ me ‘kid,’ all right? I told you, it’s Ray.”

After a long moment under a form of intense staring torture, Ray is released, and he drops heavily onto his feet. “Start walking,” Brad says.

Ray looks around. They're not in the town anymore, just among meadows with leaves rustling against leaves in the wind. He squints against the sun and wishes he had his shades on him. “Where to?” he asks.

Brad stares at him coolly. “Home.”

“I don’t even know where we are!” Ray protests, straightening his shirt indignantly.

“We’re only about fifteen miles outside of your little bumfuck hometown. You’re lucky I didn’t decide to make that fifty.”

Ray scowls. “What, you knew I was in there the whole fuckin’ time?”

Brad just stares him down and then turns toward his car.

“Hey,” Ray calls. “You're not really gonna just leave me here, are you?”

Brad keeps walking.

“Then how 'bout this. When I get into town, I visit my ol' friend Sheriff Powell,” Ray says, and he watches with satisfaction as Brad stops walking when he gets to the hood of his car. “And over tea and biscuits, I let him know about your fuckin' Freddie Kreuger toolshed there in the trunk. Now, I don't know if you need a permit for a flame torch or anything, but the wooden stakes and shit are probably gonna cause a few problems. You're in the country, baby — we may even have ourselves some kind of fuckin' witch trial or somethin'.”

Brad considers him for a moment, staring at him in that way he did when they first met, as if he's looking through Ray, right into him, drawing out every bit of information and filing it away somewhere behind that expressionless mask. “I should've let them charge you with murder,” he says coldly.

Ray thinks of how, after essentially kicking the shit out of him, Brad had wandered back into the chaotic mess in front of his house to speak with the sheriff. He remembers Brad’s little speech about the kind of person Ray is, about how there are worse things, and feels guilt begin to worm its way through his gut.

But it's not enough. Not yet.

“I need to know,” he says, shrugging helplessly. “I need to know what happened to my mom.”

Brad presses his lips together, and then he says, “And I need a beer.” He about faces and slams into the car.

When Ray hears the click of the other doors being unlocked, he can't help the grin that spreads across his face. He follows. “Hey,” he says once Brad gets the car going. “Can we not listen to 'All Out of Love' ever, ever again, Mr. Russell Graham?”

Brad doesn't flinch at the alias. “It's a classic.”

“No, it's a relic,” Ray corrects.

“Driver picks the music,” Brad says evenly without looking away from the road. “Shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

+++

“So, wait. Demons, ghouls, witches, ghosts, and...what? Vampires too?”

“Affirmative.”

Ray makes a face at that answer, but then he asks, “But, like...Ann Rice vampires?” He kind of thinks that's kickass, not all doom and gloom like Brad's making all these things out to be. “They get blasted with sunlight and turn into stone? Hey, was Ann Rice a hunter too? Do you _know_ her? Is she like Xena, Warrior Princess? Or, oh shit, like motherfuckin’ _Buffy_?”

Brad sighs. “No, Ray. Put your fucking boner away. No one really knows about this shit. And vampires don't turn into stone in the sun; they're just sensitive to light. You have to cut their heads off for them to die.”

Ray stares at him and waits for the punch line. Then he asks, “No shit?”

“No shit.” Brad cranes his neck to look at the bar. “Jesus Christ. How long does it take to get a goddamn drink in this place? Does everyone move in slow motion in areas of lesser latitudes?”

“It's not even five p.m. yet. You need to learn to relax, Iceman.”

“What'd you just call me?”

“Well, I figure you need a nickname. Like Batman. Except the hunter equivalent. _Ergo,_ Iceman.”

“No.”

“I think so,” Ray says with a grin. “Anyway, so are there others like you? Hunters?” Brad looks away and doesn’t answer. “Oh my god. There are. Are y’all part of some, like, Justice League type deal?”

“No,” Brad says firmly, and then he holds up a hand when Ray opens his mouth to ask another question. “No more talking until my beer gets here.”

During the few minutes it takes for the beer and a coke to arrive, Brad has to hold his hand up three more times to stop Ray from speaking.

Ray dips a finger into his drink and licks it. “Coke? Seriously?”

Brad just lifts a brow at him and grins around taking a sip from his beer.

Ray digs a hand into his pocket for his wallet and surfaces with his ID. Well, his fake one. “This bad boy is hella more legit than your piece of shit fed badge, Colbert. Penny up and get a drink for your ol' pal Ray-Ray.”

Brad takes the ID and looks at it for a minute before glancing at him. “Where'd you get this?”

“I'm a man of many talents,” Ray says with an easy shrug. At Brad's skeptical expression, Ray puts a hand to his heart as if offended. “I'll have you know that I learned from the best, homes! I'm an artist. And if you're nice, maybe I'll even hook you up. But I’m tellin’ you right now, you won’t be using anymore names from lame-ass ‘80s pop bands.”

Brad drinks half of his bottle down in response, and Ray rolls his eyes, taking a long, loud sip from his own drink. Then he watches with slight surprise as Brad flags the waitress down. “You'll probably have to wait an hour for it,” Brad says grudgingly.

Ray smiles and leans back in his seat. He decides to grace Brad with a moment of silence in thanks. The fucker doesn't even say thank you, though, just eyes the door as if waiting for someone to walk through it. Then Ray remembers the journal still tucked into the waistband of his jeans, the list, realizes that Brad's taken them here, to the Road House Saloon, for a reason.

“So,” Ray says after the waitress drops two more bottles and their burgers off at the table. He pulls the journal out, holding it in his lap for a minute before pushing aside his meal and setting the journal on the table.

Brad's eyes zero right onto it before darting to his face. He puts down his burger. “You look through that, Ray?”

“Maybe a little bit,” he replies.

“Define 'a little bit,'” Brad orders.

“OK. Maybe a lot.” He drops his eyes and picks at the label of his beer bottle. “You know what happened to her.” It’s less of a question than a statement.

He looks up in time to see Brad nod once. “She turned into a werewolf.” He exhales through his nose and takes another sip before saying, “There's no cure. There's no stopping them.”

In the words, Ray hears again, _It's not your fault._

“Why didn't you catch the one that got her first? Why her?” The words slip right out of his mouth, almost without his meaning them to, but then he doesn't try to take them back.

Brad doesn’t say anything for a long while. Ray finishes his beer and folds the paper label.

“I fucked up,” Brad finally says. Ray looks up and sees that Brad is looking him in the eye even as he condemns himself. “A man escaped the wolf in St. Louis. I should have followed up, but I had to catch the wolf on the last day of the full moon last month. Then I drove straight here when I read about Carl Hollis’s death. Last night, I was driving around the bar waiting for any sign of the wolf when I intercepted the radio call about a disturbance reported at your house.” He takes another sip of his beer. “You know the rest.”

Ray nods slowly. Brad leans his elbows on the table and twirls his beer bottle around. Then Ray clears his throat. “It’s not your fault either,” he says. “These werewolves seem like slippery motherfuckers.”

Ray can’t quite define the expression that crosses over Brad’s face, but then it disappears when the waitress drops off another round.

A couple more beers later and with his stomach full of two burgers with fries — which Ray made Brad pay for — the sun is already setting. Ray feels pleasantly buzzed enough to say, “I'm gonna do you a favor, Colbert, and help you.”

Brad looks at him with a raised brow before reaching over to confiscate Ray's still-half-full beer. “And how are you going to do that?”

“By helping you settle this werewolf business, of course! And give that back.”

“You are not helping me, Person,” Brad replies. “In fact, I think it would be safe to say that you’re effectively distracting me from completing my objective.” He dangles the beer by the neck of the bottle, sloshing its contents.

“Oh, I absolutely am, motherfucker. Helping, that is. And I am only minimally distracting. You love it. Don't even lie.” He pauses and surveys the bar, looking for the person Brad might think is the wolf. “And you can't stop me from finding the wolf that did in my momma. I'll get that job done on my own if I have to.”

Brad's face pulls into an icy, stoic expression, the lines of his face tightening and his eyes transfixed on Ray's. At one point, Ray might've thought it meant Brad was going to cut him in his sleep and salt and burn his body, but now Ray just forces a grin in response.

“You know I will. I fuckin' will,” he says.

When Brad doesn't protest the point, or make any reply, Ray slaps a hand onto the table as if it's set, putting on a mask of bravado that doesn't quite sit properly. He doesn't have a fucking clue about what he can do, or how to do it, but he's got to try. He'll try anything.

“And after we kill this motherfucker, then I'm going with you,” he adds, because he figures, why the hell not?

“Coming with me?” Brad repeats, pausing with his beer resting on his bottom lip. He draws it away a few inches. “To do what?”

“To be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior, of course,” Ray says with a wide grin. “I'm a man now. Just like you.” He spreads his hands, as if he's stating the obvious, and he tries to force down the tug in his gut at the thought of Brad turning him down.

“No,” Brad says easily, and then he tips his bottle up and chugs the rest of its contents down.

Ray frowns, feeling insulted instead of hurt. “You didn't even think about it! You see, homes, I've thought this through. Our enemies need dismembering — if there are motherfuckin' werewolves in this world, there are probably zombies too. You didn't mention those, but there _must_ be some out there. I'm determined to find 'em and, like I said, dismember them.”

“Ray — ”

“Come _on,_ buddy!” The waitress comes by with two more bottles, which Ray hoards on his side of the table. “I mean, sure, I'll miss NASCAR,” he says, and he pauses, because he remembers when he last went.

He remembers how his momma drew together a bit of savings she had and somehow came up with two tickets just for them and not that shithead Porter, may he rest in peace.

“That'll be a loss,” he goes on, “but then we can be dragon slayers, like in those commercials. The one with the soldier in the yuppie blue uniform with the sword and shit.”

“It's a Marine in that commercial,” Brad corrects stiffly. “And we're called — _I_ am called a _hunter,_ Ray. Hun-ter. I know backwoods, toothless, inbred rednecks like you have an issue with extensive vocabularies, but why don't you try getting that through your goddamn thick, corn-fed skull.”

Ray starts laughing until beer comes out of his nose, and he even catches a hint of a grin on Brad's lips before the man takes another big gulp from his beer.

After a minute, Ray’s smile starts slipping from his face. “Seriously, Brad. What — what am I supposed to do here? After what I did?” Brad just takes another sip and watches him. “I can’t go back to how I used to be. Not after this. I — ”

But then Brad abruptly pushes up to a stand. He sloshes his beer over the table and rights the bottle distractedly. When Ray looks at him in question, Brad nods toward the restroom. “I’ll be right back,” he says.

Ray waits a moment, his stomach beginning to roil in his gut as he watches Brad walk behind a man in the direction of the restrooms.

Then he says, “Fuck it,” and follows.

+++

The hallway is silent as he walks along the wall. He doesn’t hear gunshots or yelling, but then he comes up to the door hears Brad’s voice. Then there’s a muffled cry, long and horrible, and Ray doesn’t think before pushing the swinging door open.

Brad stands there with a gun in his hand, his finger straight on the trigger as he aims it at the man bowed over against the far wall. He glances at Ray in the mirror.

“Get out of here, Ray,” he orders, voice tight, and Ray takes a step back at the tone. “Right the fuck now.”

But Ray can’t, _won’t,_ and he’s shaking his head as the man throws his head back, the muscles of his neck contracting, the blue veins pressing against his skin. The man makes a strangled sound as fur bursts from his pores, and there are cracking, breaking sounds as his face contorts and his skin stretches over limbs elongating like he’s growing roots.

It looks like the transformation is excruciating, the man’s eyes watering even as the pupils expand and take over the green of his irises, then the sclera. His sharpening teeth turn his lips bloody and raw, and then he collapses.

“Ray, don’t —” Brad starts to say quietly, his finger curling on the trigger, but then wolf lifts its head, irises glowing silver at them as it pushes up to a crouch low to the tiled ground, the ragged remnants of its clothing hanging off its mutated form.

Brad doesn’t shoot, just aims, and Ray’s about to yell at him to fucking _do_ something when the wolf turns and leaps right through the window, making its escape. The glass breaks with a ringing, shattering sound, shards fanning outward and leaving only its sharp remains pointing upward on the sill in its wake.

Ray is the first out the door, shoving past people on his way out of the bar and into the lot. He races around back where the window faces. He hears Brad right behind him, shouting at him to wait. But Ray’s legs are pumping fast against the pavement, and he can’t make himself slow down, not when that wolf is out here somewhere.

He knows he doesn't even have a weapon, but at this point, he's ready to strangle the thing with his bare hands.

He finally stops in the middle of the loading lot behind the bar, turning in a circle, looking for any sign of the thing that infected his mom.

“Ray,” Brad says again, and Ray whirls on him.

“I’m not going back inside, Brad,” he replies, and for some reason his voice is shaking. “I’m not. I’m — ”

“Take this, you idiot,” Brad says, tossing him his gun. Then he reaches down and pulls a knife from his boot. “Silver bullets.” He gestures with the knife. “Safety’s off. I hope you’re as deft with handguns as you are with letter openers.”

Ray coughs out a broken-sounding laugh, not sure if that statement makes him feel like crying or laughing hysterically, but then he hears running steps and only has time to glance over his shoulder before he’s tackled to the ground.

He loses his grip on the gun, knocks his head against the pavement, and brings his hands immediately to the werewolf’s neck to keep its teeth away from him. It weighs a ton, makes an awful, low growling sound as it tries to bite him, hot saliva dripping from its mouth onto his cheek. Its silver eyes swim as Ray waits for his vision to even out from the blow to his head.

His arms are shaking and feel like they’re about to give way as he keeps the thing’s jaws away and squeezes at its neck. He feels like his chest is about to cave under the weight of it, and he barely even feels the wolf’s claws digging harshly at his side before it’s pulled right off of him.

He rolls over weakly, holding his side, his shirt wet from what has to be blood. He sees Brad roll until he’s settled on top of the wolf, fighting off its claws as he tries to stab it with his knife.

Ray catches sight of the gun just out of reach and scrambles for it, and he turns, his finger curled around the trigger just as the wolf swipes at Brad’s head and lands a hard blow. Brad topples onto the ground as the wolf straightens.

Head clear, hands steady, Ray sights down his target. He inhales.

— _Caedis. Caedō._ You kill. I kill.—

He shoots on the exhale.

White clouds form before his face as his breaths come evenly. The werewolf lies face down, blood pooling from the bullet wound through its heart. “Brad?” he calls. He’s surprised when his voice comes out calm.

Brad pushes up onto his elbows and looks at him carefully over the gun that Ray slowly lowers. “You hurt?” Brad asks.

The metal of the weapon is hot in Ray's hand before he sets it onto the ground between his legs. He presses his fingers lightly against his side again, lifts his shirt to see. “Shallow,” he replies.

Brad nods and slowly pushes up to a stand. He walks as if he’s hurting, but Ray doesn’t see blood. Brad leans over and picks the gun up, flips on the safety, and tucks it into the back of his jeans. The hand he offers to help Ray up is large and warm.

They don't do anything to the body or alert the authorities, and, later, they don't attend the funeral.

But they do stand there for a moment, side-by-side in that dimly lit loading lot, bruised and bleeding, and they watch as the werewolf transforms back into a human. Blood pools beneath the man’s body. It smells like rot and infection.

Ray watches it expand, while Brad remains steady as if transfixed until the transformation is complete, even when the blood begins to seep beneath the toe of his right boot. Ray feels the warmth of their touching shoulders and doesn't shiver from the cold in the chilly night.

 _Mutāre. Mutat,_ he thinks. _To change. It/he/she changes._

When Brad turns and walks away, Ray follows, and after Brad gets into the SUV, he waits until Ray closes the passenger door before starting up the engine. Then he speeds away quickly, and over the sound of the growling engine, they can hear sirens.

Limbs feeling loose with exhaustion and insides tight with the thought of everything that's happened in the past couple of nights, Ray is too drained to think about it when he realizes they're not heading to the road that will take them back to Mrs. McKinney's.

They head straight out of town.

Brad doesn't say anything, and Ray just relaxes back into his seat, finding a place on the floor next to the cassette tapes and the police radio, something like relief washing over him so heavily that he almost feels warm from it. The smell of old book pages does little to comfort him right now, but the thrum of the car’s engine makes his insides feel like they’re settling again. He watches the smudged outline of the trees whisk by as Brad exceeds the small roads' speed limits by at least twice their value.

The window is cool when Ray leans his forehead against it, and his eyes are dry as he blinks, his eyelashes brushing against the glass.

He realizes his mind’s at ease, even if the rest of him has a long way to go in getting there too. But he doesn't have any more questions, no plans, no more memories to dwell on.

Just a direction, a road to follow.

+++

It’s silent as they drive, and, surprisingly, it isn't awkward. Ray thinks that Brad probably doesn’t talk that much unless he’s insulting someone or asserting how much more intelligent he is than other people, which is just fine with Ray right now.

Then, Brad suddenly asks, “You speak Latin?”

Ray glances over at him and raises a brow in question before wincing. There is a cut above his eye, and when he lifts a hand to touch it gingerly, he notices that his elbow is scraped too. He catalogues his other bumps and bruises, and kind of feels like a badass motherfucker.

“You were conjugating verbs, when I met you,” Brad goes on.

Ray opens his mouth to explain. He thinks about late nights with his books and notes spread out on the kitchen table, his momma with no makeup on and her hair in a towel after her shower. He remembers reciting verbs — first, second, third, and fourth conjugations; present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect; active and passive voices.

Her laugh, his voice echoing in their small kitchen, her fingers bracing flashcards, his mouth full of coffee crystals.

But then he thinks of the last time he was with her, the last time he was in that kitchen — _petis, secō, caedō._

“I can speak some,” is all he says. And then he pushes the memory from his mind.

Brad doesn’t say anything else, then, and the rest of the drive is quiet.

A few hours later, Brad finally pulls over when they are far away from Nevada. They drive by fields and forests and small gas stations until it's just a straight shot of highway, all unfamiliar stretches of land and curving bends that Ray doesn't recognize. He’s almost thankful for the sight of the foreign landscape.

It's almost dawn when the SUV jerks to a stop in the way that only the truly exhausted or truly retarded can accomplish.

Ray glances at Brad with a scowl when he twitches awake at the abrupt stop, hoping his expression conveys which of the two he believes to be the case in this instance.

Brad ignores him and leads the way into the main office. "Single," he says, whipping out a credit card with the ease of practice. Ray notices that the name reads neither “Brad Colbert” nor “Russell Graham,” but he's too tired to even make a crack about it. He just clears his throat. Brad glances over his shoulder at him in question, and then he raises his brows. "Two doubles," he amends. Ray thinks Brad isn't used to having company stay the night.

When they get to their room, he sinks right onto the bed against the far wall, but he watches as Brad digs around in his duffel for a canister of salt. Brad shoots him a glance over his shoulder. “Rule number one: Always line windows and doors with salt,” he says softly. “Keeps the bad shit out.”

When Brad puts the salt canister away, he surfaces with a big hunting knife, its edge thin from being sharpened so many times. Ray watches as the man walks over and stuffs it under the other bed's pillow. He averts his eyes though when Brad glances at him again.

He only hears Brad wandering around the room until he sees the man's denim-clad legs before him. Looking up, he sees another knife in Brad's hands. “You seem to know your way around letter openers, but I figure this'll do for now,” he says.

— _Secare, secās, secō._ To cut, you cut, I —

Ray swallows and forces the onslaught of words to leave his head as he pushes up on one elbow. “For what?”

“To protect yourself,” Brad replies, flipping the knife so he holds it by the blade. “Always be prepared.”

Ray sits up and takes it by the handle. He tests the balance, remembers hunting trips with his friends and their dads. When he looks up, he forces a grin onto his face.

“'Be prepared'?” he repeats, raising a brow. “Are you fuckin' serious? That's like, the Boy Scout motto. Actually, it really, really is.” Ray finds that his laugh is genuine when Brad turns away and settles onto his own bed. Something warm winds through his gut at the fact that Brad hadn't turned away quickly enough for his own grin to be concealed. Ray goes on, “Your second Hunting 101 bit of advice is, 'be prepared, just like a cocksmoking Boy Scout'?”

“Don't cut yourself in your sleep, Person,” is all Brad says. Then he shuts the light off, and it's quiet again.

That night, Ray can't sleep even though he's so tired he feels sick with it. He lies on his side and looks at the light pouring through the thin film of the motel curtains. He notices that Brad’s feet hang off the edge of the bed, and that the man sleeps on his back, still and straight like a corpse. His shoulder is a mass of shadows, scarred around the cap of the upper arm and spilling partially onto his torso. Ray wonders if it's from a hunt gone wrong, if it might be from something else.

“ _O-guf. Aasef,_ ” Brad suddenly mutters.

Ray waits, maybe for Brad to say something else, maybe for him to wake up and explain what the fuck that was, please. But all Brad does is shift slightly in his sleep, though one hand remains slung beneath his head under the pillow, probably holding onto that knife like the paranoid fucker he is.

Ray half-heartedly wonders if Brad might be an alien, or something to hunt, someone Ray can’t trust, but he soon disregards the thought. If Brad didn’t try to exorcize him for spouting Latin like some sort of _Exorcist_ retard, then Ray figures Brad’s OK with his — whatever language that was.

After another moment, he finally gives up trying to fight his nausea and pretending to sleep. He gets up and creeps quietly to the bathroom. He splashes water on his face, braces his hands on the toilet's rim, breathes in the smell of Lysol and feels his insides roil. It’s like he’s full with it, the smell of sanitation, the memory of what a dead werewolf smells like, the beer in his belly and the food he scarfed down on Brad’s dollar.

His body jerks with the strength of coordinated contractions, and then the vigorous ones that force the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

When he’s done, he kneels back on his heels and swipes first at his eyes and then at his mouth with the back of his hand. His hair hangs over his eyes in sweaty locks, the sharp tips of the strands poking at his closed eyelids until he brushes them back in frustration.

He only notices that Brad’s there when the man forces a cup of faucet water into his face. When Ray takes it, Brad steps back and leans against the sink, staring straight ahead as if he can see miles past the beige towels on the rack across from him.

“Couldn't sleep?”

Ray wants to snap back, wants to make a smart alec remark or shout at him, but his throat burns. He just shakes his head, eyeing Brad's long form as the man folds his arms across his chest.

Brad nods slowly. He doesn't even look like he's tired, standing there like that without any expression on his face. After a moment, he glances over. His mouth twists wryly. “You need a haircut,” he says.

Ray shrugs because he’s still trying to wash away the taste of bile, sipping slowly from the cup in his hand. His teeth taste like metal, feel raw and sharp, and he feels empty inside and so small. He sets the cup on the sink's edge and watches as Brad walks out.

But Brad walks briskly back in again after a moment, and Ray doesn’t resist when the man helps him up and steers him toward the sink.

The electric razor reflects the fluorescent light above the mirror as Brad plugs it in. It buzzes loudly, makes Ray’s skin vibrate when it touches down, drowns out any sounds and all words that might begin pouring into his head.

Brad’s hands are deft and feel so large where they land on his shoulders, on the side of his face when Brad needs Ray to tilt his head to the side. The razor tickles and scratches, climbs from the nape of his neck to his crown, and he feels his hair fall in wisps against and beneath the collar of his shirt.

There is something intimate about it, the coolness of Brad’s looming shadow hiding him from the lamplight, the calluses that brush against his exposed skin, the way his dark hair falls in tendrils and then, on the second go, drizzles into the sink bowl like so much confetti. He shuts his eyes when Brad tips his head back and works on the hair above his forehead and at his temples.

When Brad shuts the razor off, he efficiently wipes at Ray’s neck and face with his palm and fingertips. Then he walks over to the tub, gets the water going, and says, “Shower,” before walking out again. The door closes with a snap that sounds like something final.

As Ray steps into the tub, the water is just turning warm. He pulls on the shower lever. Bracing one hand against the tiles, he bows his head under the spray until his chin touches his chest. If he starts to cry, he can't tell if there are tears mixed in with the hot water trickling down his face.

 _Caedō, caedis, caedimus,_ he recites under his breath. _I kill. You kill. We kill._

Ray’s momma is dead. He murdered her, just as much as he saved her.

But by killing the werewolf that had turned her, he’d also helped to prevent anyone else from being killed. It felt like a debt repaid, that he could keep paying for by following this road.

Brad will teach him, and Ray will learn.

— _Mutare. Mutō._ To change. I change. —

He turns the dial to shut off the water. He towels himself off and stands before the mirror, watching as the condensation recedes and his own reflection is revealed in its wake.

Setting his hands on either side of the sink, he clenches the porcelain, staring at his face. He stares at his new haircut, a reflection of Brad's own, and he realizes it's a military style. Short-cropped and only a bit longer on top. It makes him look older. More put together.

Then again, it could also be the way his eyes seem sunken into his face. It’s as if the heavy parts of him are laid out in the open in brown irises. But the haircut, the cut over his eye, the bruise along his jaw, and the gashes on his stomach and his side — they make him look tougher, rougher. Make him feel harder, more solid, as if he can take it. Any of it.

All of it.

He bares his teeth at his reflection, and his teeth look so white and crooked and feral-looking under the fluorescent light as his lips stretch thinly over them in a grin.

 _Caedis. Caedimus,_ he thinks then. _You kill. We slay._

 **  
_fin_   
**   



End file.
